Mobile forensics is a goldmine. From a mobile phone’s memory, law enforcement analysts can retrieve subscriber identities, device correlations, contact patterns, usage timelines, and frequented locations, as well as messages and images that can help solve a case. It’s a powerful capability, but also a limited one. An investigation based on a single mobile phone is usually just a starting point for investigators.
Today, most of the signals that matter (movements, interactions, anomalies, behaviors) live outside the phone. They are generated by telecom networks, connected vehicles, public sensors, online activity, and many other ecosystems that surround the device. With the right legal framework and judicial oversight, these datasets allow analysts to understand much more than what a seized handset can reveal.
As agencies modernize, two major shifts are reshaping how analysts work:
Cities are turning into dense networks of sensors. Cameras, ANPR systems, connected cars, public Wi-Fi, and other IoT sources generate a growing wave of metadata that helps establish context: where a vehicle was seen, when a device connected to a hotspot, or when an unusual mobility pattern emerged.
Combined with massive real-time telecom metadata flows, smart city signals (always under the proper legal framework) create a powerful foundation for proactive intelligence: identifying convergence points, tracking movement patterns, or spotting anomalies earlier in the investigation cycle.
For years, law enforcement investigations relied on dashboards, maps, and visual explorers; analysts manually comparing timelines, movement patterns, and communication networks to reconstruct events. Traditional data fusion tools helped, but the cognitive load has remained heavy.
AI fundamentally changes this.
Instead of displaying various layers of information from fragmented datasets on multiple screens, then try to identify correlations between them for hours, weeks, or years for the most complex cases, agentic AI models do the work in seconds. They can connect any source of metadata, mobility signals, IP traces, smart city sensors, or OSINT elements and surface actionable insights to fast-track the investigations.
Today, investigators don’t need more dashboards; they need clarity. The real progress lies in simplifying their work: reducing the noise, surfacing what matters, and ensuring every insight is reliable and lawful. The AI impact is immediate: less time spent assembling fragments, navigating disconnected tools, or managing data overload, and more time applying their judgment, operational experience, and intuition.
This is AI beyond data fusion: shifting from “show me everything” to “show me what truly matters.”
The analysts’ work does not disappear: they still analyze data, validate findings, and interpret context. What changes is the balance: AI takes on the repetitive and time-consuming correlation work, allowing analysts to focus on verification, interpretation, and operational decision-making.
At Intersec, our Intersec AI platform fuses all network metadata, records, and digital footprints with cutting-edge location data to reveal, predict, automate, and assist LEAs and homeland security services. Our technology goes beyond crime investigations; it helps solve the most complex national security challenges, from border control and VIP security to the fight against terrorism and counterintelligence. To learn more, visit us at Milipol next week: https://insights.intersec.com/milipol-paris-2025